Part 14 (1/2)
He threw his arms out, clear of his holster and turned that Barry might draw his revolver. Vaguely he knew that Haines and Buck had drawn swiftly close to him from either side; vaguely he heard the cry of Kate; but all that he clearly understood was the merciless, unmoved face of Barry. It was pretense; with all his being he wanted to die, but when Barry made no move to strike he turned desperately to the others.
”Do the job for him. He saved my life and then I used it to sell him.
Daniels, Haines, I got no use for livin'.”
”Vic,” he said, ”take--this!--and march to your friends outside; and when you get through them, plant a forty-five slug in your own dirty heart and then rot.” Haines held out his gun with a gesture of contempt.
But Kate slipped in front of him, white and anguish.
”It was the girl you told me about, Vic?” she said. ”You did it to get back to her?”
He dropped his head.
”Dan, let him go!”
”I got no thought of usin' him.”
”Why not?” cried Vic suddenly. ”I'll do the way Haines said. Or else let me stay here and fight 'em off with you. Dan, for G.o.d's sake give me one chance to make good.”
It was like talking to a face of stone.
”The door's open for you, and waitin'. One thing before you go. That's the same gang you told me about before? Ronicky Joe, Harry Fisher, Gus Reeve, Mat Henshaw, Sliver Waldron and Pete Gla.s.s?”
”Harry Fisher's dead, Dan, if you'll give me one fightin' chance to play square now--”
”Tell 'em that I know 'em. Tell 'em one thing more. I thought Grey Molly was worth only one man. But I was wrong. They've done me dirt and played crooked. They come huntin' me--with a decoy. Now tell 'em from me that Grey Molly is worth seven men, and she's goin' to be paid for in full.”
He stepped to the wall and took down the bridle which Vic had hung there.
”I guess you'll be needin' this?”
It ended all talk; it even seemed to Gregg that as soon as he received the bridle from the hand of Barry the truce ended with a sudden period and war began. He turned slowly away.
Chapter XVI. Man-Hunting
As Vic Gregg left the house, the new moon peered at him over a black mountain-top, a sickle of white with a half imaginary line rounding the rest of the circle, and to the shaken mind of Vic it seemed as if a ghostly spectator had come out to watch the tragedy among the peaks. At the line of the rocks the sheriff spoke.
”Gregg, you've busted your contract. You didn't bring him out.”
Vic threw his revolver on the ground.
”I bust the rest of it here and now. I'm through. Put on your irons and take me back. Hang me and be d.a.m.ned to you, but I'll do no more to double-cross him.”
Sliver Waldron drew from his pocket something which jangled faintly, but the sheriff stopped him with a word. He sat up behind his rock.
”I got an idea, Gregg, that you've finished up your job and double-crossed us! Does he know that I'm out here? Sit down there out of sight.”
”I'll do that,” said Gregg, obeying, ”because you got the right to make me, but you ain't got the right to make me talk, and nothin' this side of h.e.l.l can pry a word out of me!”
The sheriff drew down his brows until his eyes were merely cavities of blackness. Very tenderly he fondled the rifle-b.u.t.t which lay across his knees, and never in the mountain-desert had there been a more humbly unpretentious figure of a man.